Agent T woke up in a hospital.

The last thing she remembered was a large female thug slamming a table down on top of her. Before that, there was a whole lot of pain, and after that, the vague memory of Cervantes' mocking voice... but over all of that, there was the creeping guilt of the Agent having done something incredibly, seriously stupid.

It was only a matter of time before someone would show up to remind her of that.

She was in a S.U.P.E.R. facility, but her aura kept her from being healed with any useful mutant power. Her bones would have to set on her own. She took stock of what she remembered; multiple cracked ribs, probably a fractured arm, bruises and breaks in her nose and face, and who knew what else she could not remember. Concussion, too. She was propped up in bed, hooked up to machines and a morphine drip, but she felt alert, her senses suddenly sharp. Her brain was already working overtime, analyzing all that she remembered, trying to salvage useful information from the wreck that had been her encounter with Cervantes.

By the time the doctors checked up on her, Gemma knew that she was going to have to talk to someone, and defend her decisions. Some of them, anyway. She was currently without an assigned partner... but if they even let her go back to the field, she would definitely get one now.

First, she had to prove she was capable of learning from her mistakes.
She had to be the one to finish what she started.

She looked like crap.

Anyone would after what she'd been through. Nolan might be getting some flak for not staying on top of the agents' trainings, but sometimes they went up against truly heinous mutants. S*** happened. He was here to assess where the shortcoming actually lay.

"Hello, beautiful." Nolan flourished the little bundle of daisies and a sudoku pad and pen to ease the arrival of his face. Only pansies used pencil. Definitely not the brave and valiant agents he'd trained. Adapteds like Agent T tended not to like him very much. He liked to lay them flat out on the training mat until they could return the favor. He was, perhaps, too soft on this one.

But this wasn't the moment to point that out.

Nolan set the tiny vase and pitiful few flowers on the table along with his present. Adapteds, the poor dears, had to heal human slow. She wasn't going anywhere for a while.

"I think we both know why I'm here." Nolan sat on his chair in a movement that almost looked like falling. His legs flopped over the arm rest and he was the picture of roguish comfort, a nice contrast to the bandages and gauze of the hospital bed. Nolan plucked his gloves off of his hands to let them air out. "Tell me where the bad man touched you, Agent T."

>>"Hello, beautiful."

Rolling her eyes in their bruised sockets hurt, but Gemma was willing to take the pain. Nolan was the last face she wanted to see right about now, but his visit could not have been avoided. She was secretly glad he could not use his powers on her - but at the same time, it meant they would have to talk, and talk a lot. The man brought her an excuse for flowers, and a gift that pointedly signaled that she was going to stay in the infirmary for a while. A long while.

>>"I think we both know why I'm here. Tell me where the bad man touched you, Agent T."

Gemma's lips twisted into a frown. Having made several mistakes and questionable decisions that all led her here was only going to get more humiliating if Nolan decided to be coy about it.

"I touched him first." she admitted. It was a necessary admission. It had been her first mistake, allowing herself to get carried away by his taunting. She was not telling Nolan to brag; it was simply the first mistake in the line. "I think I broke his nose, actually."

Uh. What? Nolan put his feet down on the ground. He'd been expecting Agent T to be a little less forthcoming since she was laid up and facing possible disciplinary action by way of a forced partnership to meter her future actions. Instead, she was getting right to it, no huff or fluff. Not even a sob story or 'woe is me' moment.

She threw the first punch.

"Wait, wait. Maybe we should start at the beginning." And maybe he did have to get his phone out for note taking after all. "You faced off against someone from that syndicate thing and said hello with your fist?" He was trying not to feel proud of that fact. That fact could have gotten her worse than she did.

He finally had his phone out and thumbs ready. "Names, dates, give me anything you got, Agent. I'll type up the report and let you review before I sign off on it." He had stumbled over her name for a moment. It wasn't that he'd forgotten. It was that he had the urge to call her "boo" and that was clearly unprofessional in a moment when he needed to be serious.

She could tell that her admission had thrown Nolan off balance. Good. She was not here to play games, and she liked people who took their job seriously. Even if their job was investigating her. Especially if it was.

>>"Wait, wait. Maybe we should start at the beginning. You faced off against someone from that syndicate thing and said hello with your fist?"

"Elbow." Agent T clarified, sticking to her plan of only sharing factual details "And I was not saying hello. I was expressing disapproval."

Elbows were generally effective for that.

>>"Names, dates, give me anything you got, Agent. I'll type up the report and let you review before I sign off on it."

"Jorge Cervantes." Gemma answered, giving Nolan a deadpan look, pausing to let the information sink in "He came to me. I was on my day off, at the bookstore. I assume he was there to scare me off the investigation S.U.P.E.R.
is conducting into his affairs."

He tapped away at this screen with his bare thumbs. Ahh blessed phone screen responsiveness. He couldn't touch things without gloves or else risk his power going off. Nolan wasn't the best at keeping his concentration in every moment of every day.

Just like now...

"Mhmm. Jorge Cervan-" He choked on nothing. Had he been drinking, he would have spit it out. Secret Government Agency Enemy #1.
"Jorge Cervantes of the Syndicate came to you on your day off to chat."

He reeled for a moment. The implications were astounding. He knew who they were. They had figured that much already. But that he knew a specific agent and that he knew a specific agent well enough to know her schedule. That it was her day off. That she'd be alone. That she'd be vulnerable.

He needed to reevaluate some training logs. Make sure everyone was putting in their time and double check with the higher ups that nothing new needed to be put into place.

"That's absolutely terrifying. I'm sorry that you were ambushed. Give me a sec." And now his brain was going faster than his thumbs. He held up a finger and tried to get at least a skeleton of what he needed to down.

Once he did, Nolan invited Agent T to continue. "Can you recall what was said? Any details you can pick out that might be helpful?"

>>"Mhmm. Jorge Cervan- Jorge Cervantes of the Syndicate came to you on your day off to chat."

Nolan's reaction was almost satisfying. Despite the large number of mistakes Gemma had made, the one thing she could not claim was that she had been tricked by a petty criminal. Cervantes was the best of the worst, and Nolan knew that.

"He did." she confirmed with a nod.

>>"That's absolutely terrifying. I'm sorry that you were ambushed. Give me a sec."

Gemma sat back as Nolan typed away, no doubt making notes and memos about what happened, and what wanted to find out during the questioning. Gemma was prepared to answer all question. The first step to cleaning up this mess was to own up to it.

>>"Can you recall what was said? Any details you can pick out that might be helpful?"

"He was there to provoke me." Gemma noted, keeping her voice factual "He threatened my children, and that made me lose control enough to elbow him in the nose. I walked away then to disengage. I am not sure why he chose the day or the place, but in my opinion, if he is willing to personally approach me with a clear threat to my family, that means we might be close to something he does not want discovered."

He could be serious at times. It was almost as painful as sunlight to a vampire, but Nolan had certainly endured worse.

"Sounds as if you played into his hand." Would the children need to be moved? Witness protection? Had someone already checked up on them? He typed it all down. Or typoed. The reach on his gloveless thumbs was different than his gloved ones. Autocorrect got most of his mistakes.

"We might be close," Nolan conceded, "or he's looking for whatever leverage he can and you were vulnerable enough to take the bait. You can't deny that he's unscrupulous enough to use anyone and anything."

Cervantes relied on the psychology of fear as far as they could tell. Fear and tight control made for an absolute stranglehold of the seedy underbelly of the mutant problem. They couldn't get a man in. And they were almost certain the man was harboring more than a few of their escapees.

It was time to get to the harder questions. "Did you compromise any information, Agent? Clearly you were unable to disengage."

>>"Sounds as if you played into his hand."

"I did." Agent T nodded shortly. There was no use denying the fact.

>>"We might be close. or he's looking for whatever leverage he can and you were vulnerable enough to take the bait. You can't deny that he's unscrupulous enough to use anyone and anything."

"And he has very good intel." Gemma nodded. She did not like to think of herself as vulnerable. Her training had been rigorous, and she was an adapted human; she was almost completely living for her mission. Almost. Cervantes had managed to find her only weak spot, one that had been off the books and carefully kept.

>>"Did you compromise any information, Agent? Clearly you were unable to disengage."

"I did not." she shook her head. At least she did not make that mistake "I followed him to a warehouse, hoping to gather intelligence... but he must have expected it. I was going to note the site and leave, but then I heard a cry for help from inside, and I went in. It was an ambush." she finished the story. Her injuries spoke for themselves after that.

She was honest. Or deflecting from something by being completely honest about something else. Either way it was making this considerably easier.

"Is there any way you can think that he might have gotten that intel?
How did he figure out your schedule? Online status updates, blog, text messages you sent that day?" They needed to get a lid on this. And then, they needed to reverse engineer how it happened.

And as for her following... "Did you at any time call for backup? Or call in to dispatch to let them know what you were doing?" He already knew the answer to that one, but he did have to ask. She had to know where this went wrong. She wasn't dumb.

>>"Is there any way you can think that he might have gotten that intel? How did he figure out your schedule? Online status updates, blog, text messages you sent that day?"

"I do not indulge in social media." Gemma noted shortly, although she kept herself from frowning. There was no use to it if one's social circle was reduced to SUPER, and it was a huge liability when one's work relied on secrecy and stealth. She had never made herself any kind of a profile, and the organization had taken care of the rest. "But I do... occasionally visit the same book store on my days off. I guess I had gotten predictable."

From her tone, it was clear she would not make this mistake again. It was just a book store, after all.

>>"Did you at any time call for backup? Or call in to dispatch to let them know what you were doing?"

"I didn't." she admitted "I saw an opportunity and took it, but calling it would have taken time, and if he does have intel directly from us, it would have blown my cover." she explained, although she knew it was not the whole reason, and Nolan knew it too. "It was mistake."

She seemed a bit affronted, but he had to ask. Agent T had an upstanding history of responsibility and secret keeping. Nolan had checked beforehand, but he did have to ask just in case she felt like incriminating herself. The all seeing eye of Sauron Uncle Sam saw plenty, and Nolan certainly contributed to that, but agents that were Adapteds were somewhat trickier to keep tabs on.

His thumbs continued to make notes as fast as he could think of them. Possible mole? Why didn't she text? Other solutions for agents? Guaranteed secure avenues of communication?

"You're a good Agent, Gemma. This isn't a life that's easy. I think everyone of us has regrets about something in our careers at some point or another."

Nolan, certainly, had regrets. But this was his life now. It would be his life until he died fighting, he supposed. Or until one of his trainees hit him too hard.

Still. It was a mistake.

"I'm glad you've thought it through. I think we both know higher ups are likely to give you a partner after this. They'll want to both make sure you're not the mole and also refresh your training. I'm not terribly sure you'll need either, so stick it out for a bit. I can't last too long, especially once they realize you're probably teaching more to whatever hot, young gun they stick you with."

He went back to edit one or two last typos.

"Anything else you have to add, Agent?"

>>"You're a good Agent, Gemma. This isn't a life that's easy. I think everyone of us has regrets about something in our careers at some point or another."

Gemma huffed at that, but didn't disagree. Her regrets went back a lot further than the start of her work with S.U.P.E.R., but she did not need to talk about that now. Life was what it was, and it had never been easy for anyone, so she was not about break down and start complaining. She was too high on drugs yet anyway.

>>"I'm glad you've thought it through. I think we both know higher ups are likely to give you a partner after this. They'll want to both make sure you're not the mole and also refresh your training. I'm not terribly sure you'll need either, so stick it out for a bit. I can't last too long, especially once they realize you're probably teaching more to whatever hot, young gun they stick you with."

Gemma sighed. A partner. She was not keen on the idea of one, so much so that she felt like she had just been dropped into one of those horrible movies people liked to quote, with the jaded and experience cop teaching the young and talented one and then probably dying a heroic death at a convenient moment. At least Nolan was going out of his way to make her feel better about the whole thing. Bless his heart. She would handle this, like she handled any other assignment.

>>"Anything else you have to add, Agent?"

"I'll be submitting a request for increased protection for my children." she noted quietly "But not until we find out where Cervantes gets his information. There would be no use."